Singapore owes its success to LKY, do you agree? Why?

[iFARKurMADER]

seriously bro, i dunno what you are typing...is that english?

u want 2 kip ze argumen 2 ze period btwin 1965 n late 1980's ... yet ur frens r not ...

u mentioned paspot ... during ah u's time, there were stil ze iron curtain countries ... was it e-z 2 travel wifin dose countries? ... dat time, prc's stil haf hell lot of difficulty trying 2 step out of prc lan ...

u mentioned chip public transpot compared 2 developed cuntries ... ya, it was very much chippa den ... dat time, sinkielan's mrt has oni 2 lines, hor! ... sbs bus fare max was $1.20 ... dey noe wat was ze transpot cost in msia or ze developed cuntries @ dat time? ...

---

wud dey wok n live in prc? vietnam? ... wud dey send their kids 2 skool in prc or vietnam? ...

a lot on sinkies r working in prc/vietnam n send their kids 2 international skools there now ...

if dey say dun mind prc/vietnam, y not msia? ... msia crime-infested? so, r prc/vietnam ... if sinkies in prc/vietnam send their kids 2 international skools, dey oso can do ze same in msia ...


dey r juz havin ze typical sinkie mentality n brainwashed by dat 154th ...

 

[iFARKurMADER]

actually that was what i said, singapore could be better off.

but they said, of course there are many if's, but from 1965 to late 1980's, LKY did bring economic developement to singapore, this is already DONE.how can i say he did not do a good job, even if he just follow what the brit wanted to do, it is still him that allowed that to happen. what if its not him and the other guy made things worse?

You can rebute your friends..

"Its also possible, Singapore would be a in a better position than it is now, if any one of his colleagues who may have had a better foresight than him, was the prime minister".

Perhaps we would not be having so many immigrant/foreign workers problems, overcrowding and Singaporeans would take up blue collar jobs, which would pay as much as white collar jobs, i.e. a real developed country. We are not there YET

We are just like dubai.. at the moment with so much heavy reliance on foreign workers and not giving them fair work conditions.

 

[iFARKurMADER]

thanks for all the feedback bros.

now also these are the other main questions that my friend threw at me

1) "what could have been done better between 1965-1980's by LKY or whoever is leading singapore?"

2) "we are all here having a reasonable job without having to worry about war, shortage of food, water. are we being ungrateful? if the wrong guy took the helm on 1965, we could be worse off than malaysia"

3) "No government is perfect in this world, there is no country in the world now with 0% umemplyment, meaning there will always be criticism no matter how good any leaders of the world does now. he is not perfect, but you can't say he did a BAD job from 1965"

 

[red amoeba]

in history ppl always attribute the glory & success to the leader...but in reality, the unknown names & faces did all the hard work & bloodshed.

McArthur got go fight the Japs in the forests / island or not? Yet he was credited for leading US counter in Pacific against the Japs.

A brudder below is right to say that he came into the scene at the right time & right place. Right time because the ppl then remembered the terror of Jap Occupation and how the British failed to protect them. And thereafter, the communist problems. If i am not wrong, Lim Yew Hock the governor before him was in the position and messed up the entire government, creating a general unpleasure paving the way for him & PAP to come into the scene.

He thought he could engineer a departure from UK by forming an union with Malaysia and probably harboring hopes of one day ruling entire Malaysia but it was not to be...we were jettisoned and forced to declare independence.

Imagine at that time, no bloody country want to recognise us...what would happen? Become like Taiwan - macham like a concubine?

And when we first gain independance, we got aid from this Dutch professor seconded from UN to advise on economic policies - i will accord him the single greatest contributor of our success today...without him charting the direction & giving the advise, we would not have reached where we are today, Likewise when we ask for help to setup the army...the Israeli advisors came....and also the first generation cabinet and our forefathers....

LKY tried to do the same in Malaysia and was soundly beaten back...or if he try to do that to Indonesia, he will be killed.

even till today, our economic policies is charted and advised by this consultant team comprising of economist, CEOs, thinkers whom we fly in regularly to give advise and direction...trust we pay these minister millions to do transcription and rephrasing to make it sound like theirs/

 

[GOD IS MY DOG]

Had a heated debate with my friends a few days ago about this issue.

to me, i disagree but my friend's main point FOR this argument is

1) without LKY, singapore would be like malaysia
2) Singapore has affordable and minimum standard education, unlike some countries with little or no education
3) Singaporeans have a useful passport
4) Singapore is more modern than malaysia (comparing because LKY took the leadership after malaysia break away)
5) LKY did a good job when compared to some of the very unfortunate countries in the world
6) singapore public transport is still cheaper than other developed countries/cities like new york, tokyo, LA etc

although they do agree that

1) singapore need more oppositions in parliament
2) singapore needs to open books of temasek and GIC


my friends are engineers and bankers and probably earn about 7-8k per month but NOT working in singapore. they would fall under the "middle income group" i guess.

what are your thoughts? please make this a constructive and well debated thread available for all to come back and read and participate rather than a flaming thread.

please restrict this discussion to the times in singapore before GCT took over

Lee Kill You mah say S'pore was fishing village and barren land until he came along..............


actually, if not for LKY...............Raffles wouldn't have founded S'pore.............dinosaurs would still be roaming on this island...........and Sang Nila Utama would have been eaten by a T-Rex liao lor............

 

[winnipegjets]

LKY got sinkapore out of Malaya because he saw that it was impossible for him to become the PM of Malaya. He engineered the crisis that led to the separation. He shed crocodile tears (or was it tears of joys?) on TV and achieved his goal of being a leader of a country, albeit a small one. LKY is egoistic; he thought too highly of himself. Fortunately for sinkapore, he was wise enough to seek the assistance of the UN to help sinkapore develop and implement the advice from the UN-assigned Dutch economists. Sinkapore grew well.
Sinkapore started on the wrong policies after it no longer had help from the UN. We are in this mess because our millionaire scholars and millionaire ministers have no bloody clue what to do. They have gone to try all kinds of policies, eg. bring in 2 million foreigners to increase population, in a vain attempt to sustain the country's growth but end up creating a bigger mess which they now have no idea of resolving without hurting more sinkees.
The country gives too much credit to LKY.